5th November 2014

Review & Photography by David McKnight

Opener for tonight were Devilment; Fronted by Dani Filth with the distinctive vocals that he brings with him.
They had pulled in a core of fans who were headbanging at the front of the audience and the band themselves were throwing themselves at the gig wholeheartedly. It did feel like they were just a bit too heavy to go well supporting Lacuna Coil.

Motionless in White

The great advantage of a double-headliner gig is that the crowd gets in early. By the time that Motionless in White got onto the stage the place was fairly packed. Chris kicked it off hard, straight into Reincarnate, the title track from their new album. Musically they were slick, moving cleanly between the melodic verses and the much growlier sections of the song. When not singing Chris was motioning to the audience, encouraging them to dance harder and dance faster.

Motionless in White

Keen to take the time and connect with the audience we had a lot of talking from the stage. The last date in a week long tour of the UK (Well they did make it out of England and up to Scotland!) no-one in Brum wanted to be outdone by the previous nights gig in Manchester, so when Abigail started a pit opened up at the front.

Lacuna Coil

Half way through the set and Generation Lost had the entire venue chanting along and pogoing with Chris at the front like a demonic conductor with us all putty in his hands.

Motionless in White

Things kicked into a heavier gear as they dedicated Immaculate Misconception. More of a pit appeared and even the keyboardist, who had up to now been more restrained than the rest of the band, started headbanging.

Motionless in White

Lacuna Coil came onto the stage suitably attired for their Halloween tour… though it could have just been the influence of MiW… The flip side of the dual-headline gig is that quite a bit of the audience come along for the earlier headline, so when Lacuna Coil arrived The Institute had thinned out a bit.

Lacuna Coil

Though they aren’t as heavy as MiW, the fans didn’t let Lacuna down and threw themselves at the gig and one another as soon as Trip The Darkness started.

Lacuna Coil

By half way through their set most of the audience was singing along to Heaven’s A Lie. The relatively recent changes in the line-up haven’t changed the Lacuna Coil sound much and no-one seemed to let the new members get in the way of their enjoyment.

Lacuna Coil

If you had to guess from this gig which song was Christina’s favourite, you’d go for Fire. For the entire song she had a huge grin on her face. Her enthusiasm was infectious and the audience were much more energetic in response.

Lacuna Coil

The Institute was at its peak by the time we got to To The Edge. The band were whirling around on the stage as they blasted out the song, we “life is so short” being screamed back at them from the floor. Things slowed down after this. Christina gave a long introduction to Zombie, talking about finding empowerment in the music as they were creating it.

Lacuna Coil

The last of the main set was Enjoy The Silence, a Depeche Mode cover. I can’t quite pin what it is about this song, but I just don’t get it live. It just feels a little disjointed. Everyone knows the lyrics though, so it was more of an audience participation karaoke than anything else. Fun, but not really as much about the live music as I would like.

Lacuna Coil

There was still the encore to come, and the last two songs picked the pace back up again but it wasn’t quite a storming end. A rain of red and black balloons came down from the ceiling for the last song giving everyone, including Andrea, something to play with as the last bars of Our Truth brought the evening to an end.